E-Paper
Two dozen agitating LLB students of Allahabad University detained by cops
Over the past week, students have been protesting at the Arts Faculty of AU demanding to be promoted to the next semester without exams, which will begin in offline mode on July 7.
Around two dozen students pursuing LLB from Allahabad University (AU) were detained by the district police on Thursday. These students were protesting at the Arts faculty of AU for the past around a week demanding that they be granted promotion to the next semester sans exams which are scheduled to kick-start in offline mode from July 7.
A large number of students of LLB semesters 1 and 4 (session 2021-22) were protesting at the office of the Controller of Examinations (CoE) at the Arts faculty of the central varsity. The students were demanding that the proposed LLB first and fourth semester examinations, scheduled from July 7, be postponed and all the students are promoted. They were also demanding that classes in the second and fifth semesters of LLB should start from the first week of July. They claimed that since the session was lagging due to Covid and claimed that the examinations for six months of one semester of the course cannot be held on the basis of classes held for just one month.
Also, since the common law admission test (CLAT) is also to be held on December 23, they would need the mark sheet for the fifth semester. Students claimed that if the session was conducted at the present pace, they would not be able to participate in CLAT for which they want promotion.
Following their agitation for the past couple of days, the controller of examination and the proctor, Prof Harsh Kumar had told the students to hand over a memorandum so that the same could be handed over to AU VC Prof Sangita Srivastava.
On Wednesday, the Proctor informed the protesting students that their demand has been turned down and they will have to appear in the offline exams. Agitated over the decision of AU, the protesting students sat on dharna which continued all night.
“We had some inputs that some of the protesting students can attempt self-immolation to pressurise the AU administration for their demand, the same was conveyed to the police. On Thursday, while the students were continuing with their protest, police swung into action and detained over two dozen students”, informed the proctor.
“The examination will be conducted as per its declared scheduled and the same has been told to the students. The campus does have a heavy deployment of the police force, but the situation is under control and peaceful,” said Prof Harsh Kumar.
Prof Jaya Kapoor, Public relations officer of AU said, “On the memorandum given by the students, AU administration has decided that earlier students were promoted in the past to rectify the session delay due to pandemic, but now the circumstances are normal, and the classes are running smoothly. Thus, there is no need to promote students without exams”. An FIR has also been registered in this regard since the work in the control room for online examinations at the CoE office was being disrupted due to the dharna by the students, and also there were apprehensions that some students might try to immolate themselves. On Thursday, the protesting students were removed from the dharna site with the help of the police.
